The 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Piece of Berlin Wall by Katley Demetria Brown, 2014

Last week I was at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.  A piece of the Berlin Wall was on display.

I remember that cold November day in 1989 very well.  My daughters were born just a week before.  They were seven weeks premature and were still in the hospital.  I was worried about them since they were both in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

November is not exactly a happy month for me because of the lack of sun (I have a mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder).  Having two babies in the hospital was also very stressful, especially after a C-section. I tired very easily and had to depend on my husband to drive me to the hospital every day to see the girls; and I also had to take care of my three year old son while my husband was at work.

One night I was feeling down and my husband told me to have a look at what was on TV.  It was a broadcast from Berlin, Germany.  People were partying at the Berlin Wall.  It was the beginning of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe.

I couldn't believe what I saw.  And it made me smile.

The Wall was a symbol of tyranny for so many years.  It was part of an Iron Curtain of barbed wire and watch towers that stretched from East Germany to Bulgaria. According to the Communist Party, it was to keep the Westerners and their capitalist ideas out of Eastern Europe, but we all knew better.  The Iron Curtain was built to keep people from escaping.  And escape they did, often by dangerous means: tunneling, hiding under cars, or floating down rivers One of my closest friends left Hungary as a three year old child with her parents during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

Here is a poem I wrote five years ago about the fall of the Wall:

 A New Beginning

Communism
A way of life for so many years
In so many countries
In Eastern Europe
Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Albania, Romania, and Bulgaria
And the nation once known as the
Deutsche Demokratische Republik
Held hostage for over 40 years
Its people imprisoned by barbed wire
Watchtowers and concrete
And West Berlin, an island
In a sea of red its people isolated
Until the wall fell
And everyone rejoiced

Die Mauer ist gefallen
Berlin ist wieder Frei!

And twenty years ago
The people of Eastern Europe
For the most part peacefully
Toppled their communist governments
Like so many dominoes
And tore down the barbed wire
And watchtowers
And we shall never forget

Die Mauer ist Gefallen
Europa ist wieder frei!

If you like Balkan music, please visit my other blog The Alien Diaries.  It features music from the Balkans. Until 1989, some of these countries were behind the Iron Curtain.

Copyright © 2014 Katley Demetria Brown. Photography is © Katley Demetria Brown 2014 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Also, please check out the following websites:

Poetic Expressions from the Heart

Cahaba River Literary Journal